try doing the forward swizzle with one foot while doing the backward swizzle with the other foot, and spin!
What an interesting idea! I tried playing with it the past couple days. Not the usual entry, but it works pretty well.
But I wonder if, as with generating the spin using ones arms alone (wrap arms around body, unwrap, wrap in opposite direction), I wonder if a lot of coaches might fail it. Plus, you pretty much have to start from a stand-still, so it would be hard to work it into a routine.
Is anything in figure skating "necessary"?
I hope you skate for fun! For me, learning to do something that doesn't come naturally at all to me is satisfying and fun.
I'm not a good enough spinner to know how much two foot spins help one to learn one foot spins. But maybe learning to do a two foot spin at all (even if badly) is a lot easier than learning to do a one foot spin at all, and can be taught at a lower level.
While taking ISI alpha-delta lessons (roughly equivalent to USFS BS 1 - BS 5 or 6), I once tried to learn how to do things "right" by watching televised skating competitions (e.g., U.S. Nationals, ISU Grand Prix). But their routines didn't seem to include ANY of the moves that I had been taught. I felt cheated - I couldn't understand why we had wasted time on stuff that wasn't really "skating". But I've gradually come to realize that a lot of beginning level figure skating moves are there to train one to learn to control motion, balance, and weight, as well as to strengthen applicable muscles.
Incidentally, though I'm still struggling a lot with spins, I've been playing with pointing the initially still foot (e.g., the left foot in CCW spins) very slightly outwards (slightly to the left in CCW spins), especially if I start from a two foot glide - that helps stop the forward motion of that foot, and it initiates a slight spinning motion on that foot while the other foot does a half swizzle pump. It should only be a couple degrees or so, and only last a tiny fraction of a second, because the initially still foot is eventually supposed to glide backwards while the pumped foot glides forwards, rather than stay still. That slight initial point also helps to get rid of forward travel in the final spin. Alas, this technique doesn't feel quite the same in one foot spins (at least not from a one foot entry), though I've been playing with pointing that foot (which is the only foot used in one foot entries) slightly that way during the first few milliseconds of entry, again to get rid of any final forwards travel. But perhaps these methods don't apply to better spinners?